LONDON, April 22 (Reuters) - Managers are usually reluctant to eviscerate their players in public so Chelsea boss Liam Rosenior's stinging rebuke to his team after Tuesday's humbling 3-0 defeat at Brighton and Hove Albion smacked of the words of a man at the end of his tether.
An encouraging start to Rosenior's reign after he replaced Enzo Maresca in January has descended into one of the worst sequence of results in the London club's history.
They have now lost five Premier League games in a row without scoring a goal -- the worst run since 1912 -- and their hopes of qualifying for the Champions League are fading fast.
"I have defended the players at times when it was the correct thing, but I can't defend that performance," Rosenior said after Chelsea were completely outplayed and failed to have an attempt on target against Brighton.
"It doesn't represent this football club, it doesn't represent anything I ask from the group and that has to change.
"I feel numb I'm so angry. Something needs to change drastically right now. The professionalism wasn't there. The players need to have a look in the mirror for what they put in. You can talk about tactics... tactics come after the basics."
Rosenior was something of a surprise choice when he arrived at Stamford Bridge from Strasbourg in January having signed a contract until 2032 but when he won his first four Premier League games, sceptical fans appeared to have been won over.
That optimism is fading fast with Chelsea sitting seventh and sliding into a congested mid-table -- not what co-owner Behdad Eghbali, who was at the Amex Stadium on Tuesday, would have envisaged.
Defender Trevoh Chalobah appeared to disagree with Rosenior's claims after the Brighton debacle, saying the players had run "their socks off" and the suggestion is that there is now a disconnect between manager and players -- a scenario that rarely ends well for a coach.
"Judging off that performance, it looks that way. I won't lie," the 41-year-old Englishman said.
"We work very closely with them in training, in individual meetings, team meetings. We are giving everything to the players. There is a lack of spirit, a lack of belief that can create that perspective that makes it look a certain way.
"At the moment, it's not about playing for me. It's about playing for the club, playing for the shirt. It's about playing to win games of football. I can speak on what I saw tonight. You can read anything into it that you want, whether they're playing for me or not, but that performance in itself was damning."
There could still be a silver lining for Chelsea with an FA Cup semi-final against Leeds United on Sunday, although defeat in that against Daniel Farke's resurgent side could leave Rosenior on very thin ice.
"We need to make the correct decisions for the team for a massive game on Sunday. We'll do the very best we can to turn it around," he said.
(Reporting by Martyn Herman, editing Pritha Sarkar)
